New Years celebrations are, without a doubt, cooler here. For the past week or so, the streets have been full of proof that New Years would be an experience- stands selling yellow underwear and grapes in downtown, millions of people trying to sell lottery tickets, and people making and selling massive amounts of effigies of all sorts of cartoon characters and famous figures.
Here in Portoviejo there is a contest for the best ‘año viejo’ (new year). Yesterday morning we went driving around the city to look at all of them. They were AMAZING. They all have a theme, and they were all huge. The worst part was knowing that they would all be burnt. My favorite was one that was based on the Botanical Gardens in Portoviejo- it had all sorts of animals, and they all looked great.
Last night we took our ‘año viejo’ outside and joined all of neighbors in the street. We got kind of excited, so we set them all on fire before midnight, but it was still quite cool. Standing outside on a street full of people, with a huge exploding fire in the middle of the street and fireworks going off all around us was quite cool. After hanging out outside for a while, we all went inside and prepared dinner. We all ate, and then afterwards, my host sister and host dad went out to parties- they left around 2:15, and I think that they got home around 9 this morning. :)
I am not quite sure what we will be doing today. The plan was to eat ceviche for lunch, but now Ricardo is sick and no one else is awake so I don’t really know.
Happy New Year!
One of the large año viejo's for the contest:
año viejo's being sold in the street:
our squirrel:
all of the neighbor's año viejo's- ready to burn!
burning!
your squirl is from ice age! you burned sid!
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